Belly Band

Once I had all my elements together - the prototype, the poster and a normal print of the stickers, I felt as though the book didn't communicate immediately to the viewer that this was a book, especially with the nature based screen printed fold out poster and the lack of blurb. The book also felt incomplete as it was quite unstable, especially as the book itself is quite heavy in comparison to the 100 GSM screen-print. Therefore I decided to create a belly band by letter-pressing a quick phrase and the title to give the book an identity and make sense to the consumer. I chose to letter press to continue the hands-on approaches I have to the production of this book, and to relate it to both the screen print as both these processes compliment each other, and to the letter pressed text within the book.

I tested it on what paper stock was available in the university as this was last minute and none of my paper stock was large enough to fold around the book except for the paper stock used for my screen print (Cass Art Recycled) which I didn't think would be effective for a more precise letter-press due to the small type and the lumps/ridges of the paper stock.

I tested it on a green and brown colour of the same felt-like paperstock as I thought the contrast of the softer texture to the rougher screen print paper would be interesting and it would immediately communicate the idea of texture to the reader. The other paperstock was a speckled, recycled paper that I printed brown onto as well as the green felt paper, and white onto the brown to experiment with contrast and how that compliments the gatefold poster.

My preference when placed against the poster is the speckled paper that resembles the keaykolour speckled paper used in the book.

I then compared this paper stock to a potential other paper stock which was given to me by a peer as it's more textural and more fabric-like however the shine was reminiscent of leather and therefore I stuck with the beige speckled paper.